Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a radiation imaging system and a radiography system applied to a medical image diagnosis apparatus, a nondestructive inspection apparatus, and an analyzing apparatus using radiations.
Description of the Related Art
There has recently been a demand for imaging of a long observation area (hereinafter, referred to as long-length imaging). Examples in a medical field include imaging the spinal cord, the entire lower limbs, and the whole body to find out a distortion or abnormality of a subject's body. In particular, a radiation imaging system that can perform long-length imaging (i.e., stitch imaging) by one radiation irradiation may be desirable for reducing the subject's body movements and the amount of exposure, as compared to a configuration in which long-length imaging is performed by dividing the observation area into a plurality of sections and performing radiation irradiation a plurality of times.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2012-040140 discusses a radiation imaging system in which a plurality of radiation imaging apparatuses is arranged in a row in a longitudinal direction of long-length imaging so that the radiation imaging apparatuses spatially overlap with each other as seen from a radiation irradiation side. Such a radiation imaging system can perform long-length imaging by one radiation exposure. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-244270 discusses a support member for arranging radiation imaging apparatuses so that the radiation imaging apparatuses spatially overlap with each other as seen from a radiation irradiation side.
However, neither of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 2012-040140 nor 11-244270 discusses how to hold the positions of the radiation imaging apparatuses in a transverse direction orthogonal to the longitudinal direction. In some configurations, the observation area may have an insufficient width in the transverse direction. For example, when a subject with a hump back is imaged from a side, the width of the observation area in the transverse direction may be insufficient depending on the sizes and holding positions of the radiation imaging apparatuses.